


between the tiger's teeth (is the best place to sleep)

by demonzoro (saintdevour)



Category: One Piece
Genre: Affection, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Timeskip, groans from the audience as i use another tiger metaphor for zoro, this is just 2.8k words of zoro thinking usopp is beautiful, warnings for alcohol consumption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28209888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintdevour/pseuds/demonzoro
Summary: It's not a bluff stacked on his bluff. Usopp says it like it's a casual fact, like Zoro is something to reach for with entreating hands, inviting and warm under the yellow-toned galley lights.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Usopp
Comments: 32
Kudos: 96





	between the tiger's teeth (is the best place to sleep)

**Author's Note:**

> to raz, if you're reading this, we're really in it now.
> 
> this is my first attempt at zosopp, so i'm still figuring them out! couldn't have done this without raz climbing the walls with me in our twitter DMs, and a special shoutout to ilan for wrangling my inconsistent tenses like the legend he is. this was meant to be a little ficlet to answer the requested prompt for "zoro/usopp + things you said when you were drunk", but... here we are... with a full fic.
> 
> all mistakes are my own, the english language is NOT my passion. enjoy, and let me know what you think with a comment!

  


* * * * *

  


Zoro was pretty straightforward when it came to drinking.

He rarely got drunk. Buzzed, at most, if it was the stuff that could strip keels from boats, but always at least enough to enjoy himself. Always enough to sit a little looser and laugh a little louder, to trust his mouth when it curved into a grin and treat it less like a failing. He appreciated a good froth on a golden beer, or the ghost-fire burn of hard liquor, though quality was hardly a must. Anything that loosened the tangle of ambition-duty-inadequacy-pride that were ever-present pauldrons on his shoulders passed - in his eyes - with flying colours.

It helped that the occasion to drink was usually a happy one, especially around a crew like his. Laughter flowed side-by-side with liquor in the company of the Strawhats. Gone were the days of side-eyeing every dubious customer in a derelict bar, hunting for a bounty or being hunted for eyeing one, never able to fully relax into a pleasant buzz. It was new to him, the crowded room full of people he actually liked, the party games with half the rules made up as they go.

It was new, but it was nice. Zoro drank and he was happier for it.

Usopp, on the other hand, was a roulette wheel.

He was a happy drunk, most of the time, though it was hard to tell if it was the alcohol or the high of excitement that came with a party. Nine times out of ten, the sharpshooter would be hard to miss on some elevated surface, belting out an Usopp hit single that Zoro first heard when it was being workshopped in the shower. He was fun to watch, especially when he was arm-in-arm with Luffy, their own two-man production.

But just like his theater of impressions, there was a theater of inebriated Usopps. They were funny, sometimes, and always interesting.

There was the one where Usopp got maudlin, worrying about the trio of boys he'd left behind in Syrup village, self-deprecation curling around throwaway questions of where he fit into the crew, the vastness of the open sea compared to the smallness of his frame. There was the one where he was all genius and none of the second-guessing, rambling strings of chemical reactions and mechanics that sounded more like magic, only stopping when the clueless scrunch of Zoro's face made him tie it all up in a neat bow of, "basically, explosion would be an understatement."

There was also the one where he had decent game, like Usopp found the spirit of a casanova at the bottom of his rum and became possessed to start winking at everyone. It was weird, and hilarious, but mostly embarrassing for the both of them, since Zoro seemed to be the only Strawhat that liked to stay put while drinking and Usopp's one-liners needed a stationary target.

(Zoro tells himself the hiccup of something when Usopp drunkenly compliments his build is definitely amusement. No, he's not taking constructive criticism.)

The one constant in the diverse line-up was that a drunk Usopp was a more honest one. Not completely, like some drastic personality shift. But honest enough that Zoro doesn't have to listen so closely to the wealth of words Usopp does say for the ones that he doesn't.

So far, Zoro's known how to deal with the myriad of drunk Usopps, always some variation between laughing along or lending an ear to listen. With a drink in his own hand, Zoro's found himself always amenable to do either. (It had nothing to do with the way Usopp will lean in close, whatever mood he's in, arm pressed against Zoro's side in a way that isn't tinged with fear - just warm and companionable and unafraid. In those moments, Usopp was always the braver one of them both. In those moments, Zoro was always the first to pull away, too warm on the shell of his ears and the back of his neck that had nothing and everything to do with the proximity.)

He has no idea how to deal with Usopp, very much drunk, very much silent, and very much staring at him.

"What?" Zoro asks, narrowing his eyes over the lip of his pitcher. Usopp jolts with a miniscule hiccup, and continues staring.

Briefly, Zoro feels a deep empathy for the butterflies pinned to those cork-boards for study, unable to see what was so fascinating about themselves and a helpless spectacle for it nonetheless. Lowering his pitcher, Zoro swiped his upper lip with his tongue, eyebrows wrenched into a questioning look. "Is it a foam mustache?" he says, and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand for good measure.

This makes Usopp break into a bout of snickering, and Zoro scowls at him. Whatever game the sharpshooter's playing isn't apparent, and a little distance is as good a precaution as any, so Zoro inches towards the other end of the cushioned galley seats. With the seasoned paranoia of someone who's been a victim of one too many egg-related pranks, Zoro eyes Usopp's hands and distantly keeps track of where Luffy is in the room. Usopp, the menace, just closes the gap again.

"Relax, Zoro," he says, and Zoro shoots him another suspicious look, which just makes Usopp snort again. "Seriously. I'm not gonna egg you or shove a hot pepper down your pants. Just c'mere, will you?"

"No." Zoro pauses. "Since when was shoving hot peppers down people's pants a thing?"

"It's not," Usopp replies, breezily. "Yet."

Ominous.

"C'mere," Usopp says again, and stretches his hands out. Zoro backs into the couch cushions like a recalcitrant alley cat, beer sloshing in his pitcher at the sudden movement. The particular set in Usopp's eye registers just a moment sooner, and Zoro gives a glare that would make most pirates piss themselves into surrendering.

Usopp just looks more determined.

"If you do what I think you're gonna do, I'll slug you," Zoro growls, and curses himself for it immediately. He knows with unwavering certainty that whatever game is being played here - still unknown and ambiguous - he's just lost.

Usopp is many things when he's drunk, but he's always, always a good liar, and Zoro has just tried to out-bluff the master. It also goes without saying that lying has never been Zoro’s strong suit.

Zoro sees his defeat in increments: the way Usopp pauses, not in fear but contemplation, the way the sharpshooter tilts his head just so, and then Usopp's bald-faced reply of, "No, you won't."

It's not a bluff stacked on his bluff. Usopp says it like it's a casual fact: the sky is blue, the hair on Zoro's head is green, and no, Zoro won't. Like Usopp's never seen Zoro slide the keen blade of Wadou into a man's neck, face splattered with arterial blood; like Zoro has never been defined by preternatural violence; like Zoro is something to reach for with entreating hands, inviting and warm under the yellow-toned galley lights.

Usopp stares at him, and Zoro stares right back.

His scowl lasts for a whole valiant five seconds, before Zoro shows his hand, all duds, and folds like a soggy house of cards. "No," he relents, the weight of his hackles dropping. "I won't."

Usopp beams at him. All at once, the admission doesn't seem to have cost so much. Even when Usopp takes the pitcher of beer from him to place it on the table, the only protest Zoro has to offer is a small 'hey-', quickly snuffed out as Usopp cups his face between his palms.

For all of Zoro's brute strength, Usopp's gentle touch is indomitable, and not for the first time, Zoro is struck with all the things that Usopp is that Zoro will never be.

Against his face, Zoro now knows that Usopp's hands are as warm as they look, soothing even with their odd callus. They're so unlike Zoro's weathered ones, too much of an amalgam of toughened skin and scar to offer a modicum of solace. Usopp's hands smell like chlorophyll and gunpowder, no doubt having been entrenched all day among plants and inventions that Zoro couldn't hope to name. Zoro's hands just smell of iodine and copper, the sharp stinging scent of something medical clinging to the skin he'd split from straining against his limits yet again. In the clarity of being painfully sober (though not for the lack of trying), Zoro can see how Usopp slightly lists to one side, the dopey edge of smile underneath the black pools of dilated pupils. 

He's beautiful, Zoro thinks, for his coiled curls and warm round-edged features and all the ways he's Usopp. But also beautiful in how unlike he is from Zoro, who is only coiled tension and frigid sharp lines. 

In every way, they're a dichotomy. There's a part of him that shirks from it, wanting the sureness in the logic that like can only go with like, and the bone-deep self-awareness too, about how things that are made to fight are not things that are meant to be cherished. The hands against his face should not fit there. Softness does not factor into the pursuit of strength.

But the longer Usopp leaves his hands curved around Zoro's face, with a thumb thoughtfully stroking at the base of Zoro's jaw, the longer Zoro exists within the reality that they do fit. That this doesn't feel like a failing. This just feels like being held.

As Zoro bows into the crescent of Usopp's palms, the earthy heartlines of the sharpshooter's hands are uncharted constellations against his cheek. Impossibly, infinitesimally, Usopp gentles even more.

Then he squeezes Zoro's face between his hands.

"Hm..." Usopp muses, tilting Zoro this way and that like he's the grumpiest squish-faced fish he's ever seen. As ridiculous as their positions are, Zoro can't shake the feeling like he's under serious assessment. It's the eye of their sniper after all, and Zoro can't help the small uneasiness of being under Usopp's scope. " _Hmm..._ hm! You know what, Zoro?"

"Wuhgh," Zoro replies, eloquently. Usopp closes his eyes and nods sagely, confident and self-assured.

"You," he says, and punctuates this with another squeeze of Zoro's face, "-are not the big bad you think you are."

Usopp boops his nose, and Zoro blinks.

"What?"

"I know, it must be devastating for you to hear," and Usopp shakes his head, woebegone at Zoro's apparent lack of fearsome qualities. "You know, as the Magnificent Captain Usopp, I've sent legions of war-hardened warriors scurrying away back to their mothers, so I really know what I'm talking about when I say: Listen." Usopp gives his cheek two consoling pats. "You just don't have it."

"Legions, huh?" Zoro repeats, one eyebrow arching. He considers biting at the remaining hand nestled against his face. Sensing danger like a deer, Usopp retracts it.

"I bet you brood about it too," he continues. "I know you do. You get all distant, burdened with your massive muscles, and you make a face like this-" Usopp furrows his eyebrows together and exaggerates a frown. Then in a low, flat voice that Zoro realises is an impersonation of him, Usopp says, " _I am the blade, the blade is me. All I need is gains and grog._ "

"I- That is _not_ me," Zoro says, mortified.

Usopp doesn't let up. " _No hugs,_ " he gravels. " _This is a no hug zone._ "

It really only serves to prove Usopp right, as Zoro plays up his wounded pride and hooks an arm around Usopp's neck to wrangle him in, voice a half-threat when he says, "I'll show you a hug." But the protesting squawk that Usopp lets out is funny enough to make up for it (and the half that isn't a threat is pure affection, not that Zoro would admit it at cannon-point).

"Murder!" Usopp bemoans, scrabbling at Zoro's arm. "I'm being brutally silenced for the truth!" It's a blatant lie, and none of the other crew pay their squabble any mind. The headlock Zoro has him in is firm but ultimately ineffectual; it's all stern muscle but none of the pressure, hence Usopp flopping about like a fish.

"I'm great at hugs," Zoro insists. Usopp stops floundering to give him a look.

"Hey! Telling big fat lies is my job!" he says in mock-offense, hand over bleeding heart. As a retort, Zoro pulls Usopp's goggles away from his head and releases them with a snap.

As he watches Usopp fling himself on the couch cushions citing a fatal head injury via elastic force, Zoro thinks that maybe Usopp is right. He really should know better than attempting to lie to the sharpshooter twice under the span of ten minutes. 

"Alright. So maybe," Zoro begins, and Usopp's auto-eulogy peters to halt. Zoro grinds his teeth as if to make the next few words more palatable. Lying is off the table, but it doesn't make honesty easier. "Maybe, I'm not– that good at hugs."

He feels ridiculous just saying it, because it's not what he's trying to say at all. It's less about hugs, and more about how touch, for him, is always accompanied by the shroud of violence. It's more about how this crew feels like light and warmth, luminous all the way through in their own unique ways, while he prowls around the edges like a sentry and an outsider all at once. It's more about how Zoro collects wounds in quick scar tissue and writes them off, while Usopp bruises and it _sticks_ – and their difference is so frightening, sometimes. More painful than a blade to the gut.

Usopp looks at him and that feeling of being under a scope returns again. Except this time, Zoro is thinking, _see me, see me, see what I'm really trying to say._

They're silent for a stretch. The mortification is a solid obstacle in Zoro's throat.

But then Usopp takes one of his arms and squeezes himself back into Zoro's space, like he hadn't just made a production out of escaping from Zoro's villainous grip. "That's fine," he says, and rearranges Zoro's arm around himself, settling his weight against Zoro's side. Zoro accommodates him with just the slightest shift.

"You're warm, and you're brave," Usopp continues, turning his face into the crook of Zoro's neck, "–and you make me feel safe."

The last five words are tangible, warm puffs of breath against Zoro's skin, right where his pulse is. It's as good as Usopp taking the steady _tha-thump-tha-thump_ between his own teeth and simply– leaving it there. No fight and no pain.

Just plain and simple comfort.

Zoro tilts himself into Usopp's orbit and huffs out a laugh. "Hey," Zoro says, just the whisper of mock-offense over his thundering gratitude, an inconsolable beat that tattoos this moment into his memory. "That's my line."

Usopp just tucks his face into the crook of Zoro's neck even more. He mutters something that's more sound than words and relaxes his entire weight against Zoro. It's hardly a burden, but Zoro slides down the couch anyways, carrying their descent until he's lying on his back with Usopp drunkenly draped above him. Usopp hums, content.

"You should take your binder off if you're going to pass out," Zoro says.

"Didn't wear it tonight," Usopp replies muzzily.

Zoro pats his back. "You're drunk."

"Maybe a little bit."

"More than a little bit."

Usopp doesn't say anything to that at first, and as the quiet between them continues, Usopp doesn't say anything to that at all. What he does hear is the slow steady breaths that came with the deep sleep of the alcohol-induced.

There's a pride in being trusted like this. Not the kind that keens between the clash of blades but a small glowing one, nestled in his chest. If Zoro is something that's all teeth, then Usopp has taken to his tongue like a lamb to a bed of grass. Zoro can't say a word in protest, couldn't if he tried. It's nothing short of amazing, the way Usopp sleeps on like there's no better place to do so than between the tiger's teeth. 

It's a display of trust that compels Zoro to live up to it, to be warm and brave and safe, to do something else with his mouth that isn't baring his teeth. He turns his head and presses his lips against Usopp's temple, silently thrilled at this own gesture, a singular type of bravery that he's never acquainted himself with.

"We're talking about that in the morning," Usopp suddenly says, and Zoro jolts. He braces for the confrontation, but Usopp only tightens his hands into Zoro's shirt, and after a beat, Zoro relaxes.

They fit like this. Zoro can't deny that anymore. It's new, but it's nice. The morning can wait. Usopp holds onto Zoro tight, and Zoro holds him back.

  


* * * * *

**Author's Note:**

> catch zoro fifteen minutes later trying to stretch and reach his pitcher of beer where usopp put it on the table without waking usopp up. 
> 
> thank you so much for reading! feel free to send me a request from [this prompt list](https://demonzoro.tumblr.com/post/636711795667697665/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a). here's a post on [tumblr](https://demonzoro.tumblr.com/post/638088546637479936/fic-between-the-tigers-teeth-is-the-best-place) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/saintdevour/status/1340903364909912064) if you'd like to support this fic there. 
> 
> tumblr: [@demonzoro](https://demonzoro.tumblr.com/)  
> twitter: [@saintdevour](https://twitter.com/saintdevour)


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